Forget sharks; watch out for phishing!

A new scam surfaced over the Fourth of July weekend. It is referred to as phishing because the scammers are fishing for information from customers and trying to get folks to take the bait.

At this time Shentel is conducting an email migration, so the scam might seem to be a little more plausible because we have been discussing email accounts with our customers. The scam note purports to be concerned about the size of your inbox and that you must keep it at a certain size. Ultimately, it demands the customer type in his or her username and password “to reset your space on our database prior to maintain your Inbox…”

SHENTEL WILL NEVER ASK FOR YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD IN AN EMAIL. Nor will any other reputable bank, service company or retailer. Never reply to these emails. Don’t send them an angry email. That actually serves to let them know that they hit on a legitimate account. DELETE. That is the key to hit.

One telltale sign of scammers is that the language of the email is usually not exactly right, as if someone is translating it to English from another language. Often that is, indeed, the case. So if you see weird punctuation, misspellings and poor word choice, hit that key and DELETE.

If you are going to the beach, watch out for sharks! And remember not to take the bait from the phishermen out there!